Alien: Romulus, the seventh entry in the main Alien franchise, came out in the U.S. theaters on Friday, August 16, and fans want to know how it ends and what happens to the Xenomorph offspring or baby. The film is set between Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) and James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) within the franchise’s timeline. Co-written and directed by Fede Álvarez, Alien Romulus revolves around an orphan young woman named Rain, her synthetic adoptive sibling Andy, and their friends as they encounter Xenomorphs in an abandoned and dilapidated space station.
Here is what happens at the end of Alien: Romulus.
What happened to the Xenomorph baby at the end of Alien: Romulus?
Rain and her adoptive android sibling Andy join the crew of mining hauler Corbelan in the hopes of finding cryogenic pods in what they initially believe to be a derelict Weyland-Yutani spacecraft drifting above the mining colony planet Jackson’s Star. The crew also comprises Rain’s former boyfriend Tyler, Tyler’s pregnant sister Kay, Tyler’s cousin Bjorn, and the ship’s pilot Navarro. All of them hope to leave Jackson’s Star for a distant planet Yvaga III, where the quality of life is much better than their current home. As it takes nine light years to reach Yvaga III, they need those pods. The others make it clear quite early in the film that they need Andy as he is a Weyland-Yutani android and can access the computer of the spacecraft. Rain, who has no intention to let her brother do this by himself, comes along.
The group eventually finds out that the drifting structure is a space station, not a spacecraft. Although they find what they came looking for, their actions revive the frozen facehuggers. After Rain places a chip from one of the damaged androids on the station in Andy, he begins following the Weyland-Yutani directive. Rain also reactivates Rook, the android science officer of the station, hoping to ask him for help, but he too follows the company’s directive above anything else. When the situation becomes really dire, he refuses to let Rain and the others leave with samples of experimental fluid taken from the Xenomorphs.
In the course of the movie, Bjorn, Navarro, and Tyler are killed. Rook is destroyed along with the station. A Xenomorph abducts Kay. Although the remaining crew gets her back later in the movie, she gives birth to an egg after they return to Corbelan, and a Human-Xenomorph hybrid comes out of it. The hybrid kills Kay and leaves Andy, who had earlier resumed following the directive set by Rain’s father, significantly damaged.
Eventually, Rain apparently kills the hybrid by setting up a trap with the egg it hatched out of. The acidic properties of the eggshell melt through one of Corbelan’s walls, creating a decompression pocket. It pulls both Rain and the creature in. Luckily, Rain had already attached herself to a harness. A container hits the hybrid before crashing into the planetary rings of Jackson’s Star, seemingly killing the creature. As the film ends, Rain puts herself and Andy in the pods they salvaged.
How Alien: Romulus connects with Prometheus
As of August 2024, Prometheus is the first chronological entry in the main Alien franchise, making Romulus the fourth film in terms of when it takes place. (However, if we count in the Predator crossover films, Prometheus is third after Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. Romulus is sixth.)
An important connection between the two films is that we can trace both their names to mythology. In Greek traditions, Prometheus was a titan who defied the gods and brought fire to humans. Meanwhile, the “Romulus” part of the newer film’s title comes from the name of one of the twin structures of the space station where most of the narrative takes place. The name of the other structure is Remus, with the legendary founders of Rome obviously serving as the inspiration for both names.
